One of the more anticipated anime this Spring 2018 in Japan has got to be Persona 5: The Animation, which is based on the latest entry in Atlus’s bestselling Persona series of JRPG’s. If in case you didn’t know, the pilot episode is already out and boy did we jump on the opportunity to see it right away! We definitely saw this coming and if you haven’t seen it yet, here are our first impressions of episode 1!
For the unfamiliar, the common theme for the Persona series of games is that it is set in a high school where students would gain the ability to summon their Personas (their otherwordly selves) and gain supernatural powers, while balancing dungeon exploring, fighting Shadows, saving the world, and being ordinary high school students who have to worry about classes and exams and being social and all that. These kids lead a tough life, I tell ‘ya!
Also worth noting is that the main characters are often nameless until a new format is released like a manga or anime and then they are finally given a name. In this case, the gist of the Persona 5’s story is that the protagonist, named Ren Amamiya, due to an unfortunate turn of events, is slapped with a criminal record and is transferred to Shujin High School where he has to stay for a year. During this time, he meets new friends and they gain the power of a Persona, which they use to fight the evils of society, calling themselves the Phantom Thieves of Hearts and keeping a low profile as ordinary high school students when they’re not out saving the world.
Now we’ve all played Persona 5, am I right? Yes? No? Well if you haven’t, I beg you, PLEASE PLAY IT! Not only was it one of best RPG’s of the Persona series, it’s one of the best RPG’s out there in recent memory! Ok, so with the anime being an adaptation of the game and from what I’ve seen, I would have to say that the jump to the anime format was pretty good and even if it didn’t exactly do anything groundbreaking, that’s okay because it doesn’t need to. The first episode served as a good point for newbies to jump into the Persona 5 lore and for people familiar with the game, it was entertaining enough even though you already know what’s going to happen. The pilot episode pretty much followed the first few hours of the game, and obviously since you can’t cram everything from the game in a full length anime episode, it still doesn’t take away from the experience and ends on a cliffhanger that would surely get you pumped up for the next episode.
If you haven’t played any of the Persona games but are still curious, it’s alright to give this a shot since all of the Persona games happen in the same universe, meaning all stories can be enjoyed by themselves without prior knowledge of the past games. For those like myself who are already familiar with the entire story, it’s still a fun to watch, especially since I would want to see what they will be changing from the game. And if you’re wondering about if any of the music tracks from the game made it into the anime, good news because some tracks were re-used so not only are you familiar with the tunes, you get to enjoy a pretty awesome soundtrack as well! There’s new music as well, like the opening song “Break In to Break Out” which is an original song sung by the same artist who sang the opening theme for the game!
All in all, we would highly recommend you to check out the first episode of the Persona 5 anime, not only is it a great watch but with a rocking soundtrack as well, you’ll definitely understand what the hype was all about. Who knows, it may convince you to finally try out that Persona 5 Playstation game you’ve been wondering about since last year!